Address and Opening Hours

530 Houston Street, Post Office Box 2562, Monterey
California 93942, USA.

November 2009: Due to State financial difficulties, for the near future the Museum will only be open for special events, research and special tours.

History

Girardin’s French House where RLS lived from September to December 1879, waiting for Fanny’s divorce and working on The Amateur Emigrant, ‘Pavilion on the Links’, and his essay on Thoreau. On first arrival in Monterey and during Fanny’s initial indecision about divorce Stevenson took a horse to go camping in the Carmel Valley southeast of the town. Here he collapsed and was looked after for two weeks at the goat-farm of Jonathan Wright.It is now a memorial museum.

Collection

Articles of furniture; first editions; RLS manuscripts (2 pp of Weir, 3 sheets of flageolet music); Stevenson’s mother’s scrapbooks; Fanny’s painting of the bridge at Grez, drawings by Joe Strong, portraits of Stevenson (by Fanny, Joe Strong and A.J. Daplyn); Fanny’s Samoa diary; four of Stevenson’s mother’s scrapbooks of reviews; photographs (including six original glass negatives) and memorabilia.

The Scrapbooks (SHM Boxes 9-12) are: (i) 1881-1886); (ii) 1887-1890); (iii) 1889-1893; (iv) 1893-1894; (v) ‘Mostly Biographical material on the Stevensons & Balfours’. (Three other Scrapbooks are at Saranac; 1876-81, 1886-7 and 1894 'in memoriam'). There is also an index (Stevenson House Administrative Records, Box 1, Folder iv).

Further Reading

Lindberg, Lori, Guide to the Stevenson House Collection (San Francisco: California State Parks, 2002)
http://www.parks.ca.gov/pages/1080/files/fa_455_003.pdf

Contact

Kris Quist, Curator
Tel: (+001)831-647-6206 | Email: This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it